Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I do that with my kids: "Here, have a Snickers. NEVERMIND!" and yank it away as they grab for it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Re:
 

All right people, there seems to be some annoyance about Zen's mistake regarding the Oracle.

I've attached a corrected version of the mod file (v2.21), as well as an updated readme for it to this post.

Enjoy.

Edi

Re:
 

Thanks Edi!

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

That's just wrong!

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

So I was reading one of the mp threads talking using the mods and I thought I'd post some of the ideas here that were interesting. I don't take credit for any of it.:

- make the common sc buffs (quickness, flying, and luck were mentioned) harder to obtain. Raise spell level and/or cost, as well as raise item cost.

- nerf life draining weapons less... people seem upset with -10 damage on wraith and hellswords. Would 0 damage be better compared to some other weapons? I'm not sure what is a good choice here since I don't mind the item mod as is.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

The -10 damage seems wrong to me, thematically (I know everyone's sense of theme differs).

What if the swords had the base damage of a "normal" 2-hand sword, but were balanced with a *defense penalty*?

The idea here is that the swords are so bloodthirsty that they pull their wielders along recklessly as they seek more life to drink.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

A high defense and/or attack penalty would be interesting. Life draining swords are hard to use http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

So how much? -3a -3d? -6d only? It sounds like a good idea but I'm probably missing some facet...

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Yep, that what I did in my small ItemBalance mod.
Ad : Available here ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gifhttp://pascal.difolco.free.fr/ItemBalancePDF_0.95.zip

Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new version
 

About a month ago I talked with Zen, and he said it was unlikely he would be putting in more work on the conceptual balance mods. So, we arranged that I would take over the project, with input from him and others.

Anyway, after a lot of modding and testing, here is finally the full set of conceptual mods (naturally, there will be more versions to fix whatever problems crop up). As making readmes for all of these would be a monumental task, I have only made one for items, which are almost the only changes that are not easy to check in game. Here is highlight of what is different from previous mod versions:

Pretenders:

Oracle is fixed, divine glyph once again is immortal, and lots of human rainbow mages are improved.

Scales:

Very little different, though supplies and gold will be slightly more common.

Spells:

Many globals that are rarely used are cheaper (riches from beneath, wrath of the sea), harvester of sorrows has better stealth, some other minor tweaks to spell costs.

Items:

Almost a complete overhaul. Life drain nerf re-done, most area of effect weapons back to normal, extra cost to items like water bracelet removed, many weak items like stone sphere made cheaper. Most of what remains from the last version is the hoarding changes, and the boosts to ranged weapons.

Nations:

No earlier version to compare to. In general, troops with low armour were made cheaper, and mages/sacred units only improved for the weakest themes (BE Ermor, IF Ulm, serpent cult Pythium, etc.). Also base caelum received a nerf, remains to be seen if it is enough. In addition, Turin's hero mod is built into conceptual nations.

Complete:

For ease of use, all of the above mods have been complied into one for those who want it.

Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new version
 

Pretenders.

Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new version
 

Scales.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

Spells.

Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new version
 

Items.

Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new version
 

Nations.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

Quantum, I can provide readmes for the Pretender and Spell mods, because I've already got those ready. They need just a couple of tweaks and will be good for the current version.

The scales mod should not be very difficult to do, as it is not very large. The nation and item mod readmes would be the most troublesome ones, and as long as you take care of the item mod readme, I can produce a readme version for the nations.

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

I don't know what program you have used to make the spell and nation mods, Quantum, but their formatting when opened up in a basic text editor is completely FUBAR, with /par tags at the end of every line and some other crap liberally sprinkled at the beginning and end.

It'd be nice if they were made with something that produces unaltered plain text instead of adding all kinds of superfluous formatting that more than likely screws them up. It also makes trying to read them with stuff like Crimson Editor or Notepad or other plain text editors a pain in the arse.

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

The complete version of the mod also suffers from the same formatting error.

The Pretender mod has one potential problem: You have added Dwarf Elder to the list of pretenders, restricted only to Vanheim, and given it certain abilities, among others gem production (2 earth gems).

You have neglected to take into account that making a prophet out of a dwarven smith turns it into that selfsame monster, the dwarf elder (#324). What this means, in essence, is that Vanheim gets a free gem generator that produces 2 earth gems per turn from turn 3 onwards, because you make some other pretender, recruit a dwarven smith on turn one, prophetize them on turn 2 and from turn 3 onward you get an extra two gems every turn.

And if the prophet gets killed, well, rinse and repeat. This is, in my opinion, something of a serious balance problem, especially in the early game or on maps with low site frequency.

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

The complete version of the mod also suffers from the same formatting error.

The Pretender mod has one potential problem: You have added Dwarf Elder to the list of pretenders, restricted only to Vanheim, and given it certain abilities, among others gem production (2 earth gems).

You have neglected to take into account that making a prophet out of a dwarven smith turns it into that selfsame monster, the dwarf elder (#324). What this means, in essence, is that Vanheim gets a free gem generator that produces 2 earth gems per turn from turn 3 onwards, because you make some other pretender, recruit a dwarven smith on turn one, prophetize them on turn 2 and from turn 3 onward you get an extra two gems every turn.

And if the prophet gets killed, well, rinse and repeat. This is, in my opinion, something of a serious balance problem, especially in the early game or on maps with low site frequency.

You have also neglected to specify starting dominion for this god. I don't know if that defaults to startdom 1, but it's another potential problem. I've just commented out the lines from the copy in my mods folder, but I advise removing this new pretender altogether unless you make a completelynew monster and get graphics for it from somewhere.

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

The nation/hero mod also suffers from the following problem: For nations whose heroes differ from one theme to the next but retain the same name (specifically Pythium), the heroes for one theme have been modified, while the others have not. E.g. the Pythium hero who rides a serpent (Hierogallus the Hero) is modified for the basic theme (monster #506) but not for Serpent Cult (monster #866).

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

I'm going through the nation and hero mod at the moment, fixing the screwed up formatting and checking for errors. I've fixed the Pythium hero problem, but I need to look at the weapon and armor assignments and modding sections.

As far as I know, it is possible now to mod weapons and armor by their ID numbers, wo this is what should be done in this mod as well, as it is NOT being done. I will probably change all of those to refer to weapons and armor by ID number and add a comment in the form of "-- <weapon/armor name>" to the end of the appropriate lines. It will make maintaining the mod much easier, and will eliminate error rate due to spelling mistakes.

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

Another problem that I had to fix was that the Pretender mod was happily trying to use new armor types that were only specified in the nation mod. Here's a hint: If you have a series of mods that are supposed to be complementary, make sure that you have ALL the new weapons, armor and modifications to existing ones specified in EACH mod. Otherwise funny and not so funny things might happen. It makes for some more maintenance headaches, especially if using versions that were not updated at the same time, but it beats no having the mod work as intended.

I'll post the checked mods in one single zip file when I'm done, and I'll just add .01 to the version number (i.e. Pretenders 2.5 will become Pretenders 2.51 etc)

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

Caelian seraph description talks about them having both air and water magic, but they only have A2, no water at all. I'll ad W1 for them.

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

Thanks a lot, Edi, I realized they would need editing, but I didn't count on this much. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I was aware of the formating issues with making the mods in .rtf, but by the time I realized it the mods were basicly done. Good catch on the gem genearting issue, and te description is also wierd, he should be scrapped as a pretender. Water magic on the seraph is probably a good idea.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

You're welcome. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

I'm pretty anal retentive about spelling errors, formatting and documentation, so what you're basically going to get is a completely reformatted version of the mods where it is visually much easier to find everything (separator lines, allcaps header lines etc) and where everything will use the same syntax. I already had complete readmes for most of the recent stuff, so this is basically just updating those.

I would also like it if we renamed the mod files a little bit, to be like "concept<insert modname>.dm", so it'll be easier to see which file you're dealing with. E.g. "conceptpretender.dm", "conceptspell.dm" etc. Right now it's "concept<alphabetsoup>.dm" and it's another thing that annoys the hell out of me.

The nation mod readme is going to take a file, so I'll post that separately, but everything else will be in the same package (mods, readmes, the graphics files etc).

The dwarf elder and the seraphs, I'll fix those. I would also like to see the Gryphon Rider (garnet amazon sacred unit) changed to be more like the black hunters of Machaka, i.e keep the original gold cost of 125 but make them stay as gryphons after the battle if the rider is killed. Otherwise even the cost reduction to 100 gold will make them too costly due to fragility because currently the gryphons disappear after battle (it's done with the #tmpsecondshape command instead of #secondshape). That's the only change I'm planning to the nation mod, and I think it might see the gryphon riders used a bit more.

By the way, the crystal amazons are not modified at all. Is this intentional?

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

On gryphon riders; keeping them after battle seems slightly unthematic, they are supposed to be very wild and independent. I have seen them used even at 125 gold when you simply need flyers, on the other hand I don't think having the gryphons stick around would necessarily be overpowered.

I didn't see any point in editing crystal amazons as they are not in the game other than as mercs or specifically placed in a scenario. I have no problem with you re-naming the files.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

I'll see what to do with the gryphon riders. In any case, the pretender, spell and nation mods have been checked and fixed, and there are now complete readmes for pretenders, spells and scales.

I'll post the lot tomorrow or the day after, after I've cheked everything one more time.

It might also be a good idea to make a creature mod that incorporates all the changes to the summoned creatures that the spell mod does, but which leaves the spells themselves alone. It doesn't have a banner, unless someone wants to Photoshop one, but the mod file itself would be easy to do. That way you would have vanilla spells but modified creatures if you like the spell costs the way they are.

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

Perhaps, though I think a better dividing line would be summons vs. spells. i.e., one mod modifies the cost and stats for summons, the other handles everything else.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

Ah that was my mistake. As far as I know hierogallus is the only hero though that changes between themes.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

All right, as promised, the compilation package is ready.

It contains the following mods in their entirety (mod file, icon file and possible readme file):

• Conceptual Balance Pretenders v2.51
• Conceptual Balance Spells v2.01
• Conceptual Balance Scales v1.3
• Conceptual Balance Items v1.31
• Conceptual Balance Nations v1.11
• Conceptual Balance Complete 1.01

The package includes readmes for Pretenders, Spells, Scales and Items. Item readme is made by quantum_mechani, the other readmes were written by me. All mods have been renamed to the format of "conceptbalance_<aspect>_<version number>.dm" for improved recognition and clarity. Readme naming convention is identical, with the word "Readme" added.

The Nations mod does not have a readme yet, because that is such a massive undertaking to produce from scratch that it's going to take several days to complete at a minimum. If I keep getting one day employment gigs, it's going to take a lot longer, and then there are various things from Real Life that will inevitably keep me from the task at other times.

All mods have been synchronized to use the exact same syntax on weapon and armor modding, comment lines, structure and other aspects. Most have more or less improved readability. The spell mod especially has been extensively reformatted to make it more readable and easier to expand upon and maintain.

ALL mods have had the several metric tons of spelling errors in unit descriptions fixed, because they drive me into a murderous rage when I spot them in-game. And for further reference, Guard and guardian are spelled with UA, NOT AU. Next person who repeats that mistake in a mod I undertake to proofread/check for integrity should not be surprised to find me taking a fireaxe first to their doors and shortly after to their heads. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

The nations mod has had the following changes made to it:

• The Hierogallus issue has been fixed.
• Caelian seraphs now possess W1 (both standard and RotR)
• Gryphon riders have reverted back to 125 gold, but turn to gryphons when the rider is killed (ala black hunter becoming a hunter spider). This makes them somewhat more useful and desirable, especially since they are fliers, but I am of the opinion that it in no way breaks the game and that the rarity of the garnet amazons combined with their cost makes it a non-issue.
• Unit modding groups all indies together, so nations which have indie units on their rosters (specifically Arco and Man) only have national units unique to them listed under their headings and should refer to indie section for the other changes. Makes for a shorter and more logically organized mod structure.

The Pretender mod has had Dwarven Elder erased and the Ice Robe armor added.

The Item mod has not been tampered with apart from the syntax and structure, but is denoted as modified by increased version number nonetheless.

The Complete mod is a compilation of all of the single aspect component mods, and as such has some structural differences. Weapon and armor modding for standard armors and new armors has been moved to the beginning of the mod, right after scale modding. Duplicated effort from several mods (e.g. Pretenders and Spells) has been removed, there is only one set of equipment modding. Magic item stat modding is in its own section (the very last one) in the Item mod.

All of the Complete mod sections are identified with a large splashy header and have the version number of the individual component mod listed.

For any further development of the CB series, this set should be used as the basis to start from, both in naming convention and mod syntax, so that we will have a consistent set to play with.

That is all. Now hop to it and download the lot.

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

And I won't mind getting feedback from the modders and the people who use them either. Either by PM or by email [edirr(at)welho.com].

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

This is great stuff, thanks to all who helped make them!

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

Since you didn´t change the item mod, here is a version without typos and better readability.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

*bangs head against wall*

Turin, I specifically changes the formatting and readability, just didn't touch the modifications. That version you just did has nothing to offer and indeed has none of the syntax editing that the version in the package has. If you want to edit something, edit that one first, if indeed it has any typoes. Or I can do that and repost the whole package. I didn't just go through days of editing hell to have my hard work immediately torpedoed by introducing non-standard formatting!

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

well I made that one before you posted yours already and I didn´t really see any changes you made except making the headlines in big letters.

In my version I put the weapon changes under the corresponding artifacts, so you can see cost and weapon changes at the same time and fixed several item affecting typos(lightning spear, lucky coin, shield of the accursed, cauldron of broth, hydra skin armor) and removed lines that weren´t needed. I don´t know if that adds nothing

I really appreciate the work you did here and wouldn´t have posted it, but it seemed to me that you hadn´t done much with the item mod, so my fixed version could save some work. But I guess if the format is so important to you I should remove it.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

Thanks a ton, Edi. Now, what program do you use to edit the mods? Otherwise, when I make a new version, we have to do this all over again. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

Quantum:

I use Crimson Editor. You can find it here. Completely free, very versatile and conforms to standards. Can be used for code developing for several programming languages (key word and structural color highlighting makes it easy to read code)and for basic text editing. It has very nifty search functions, search and replace, various text editing features such as case changing etc and Once I found this little program about three years ago, I have used it exclusively for basic text file editing.

--------------

Turin:

I specifically didn't do much structural changes for the item mod because I have not had time to get very familiar with it. Your approach, grouping weapon editing along with gem cost and path editing for items does have its merits (mainly convenience in maintaining that specific mod), but it also has its drawbacks (everything being mingled together).

The current format where the gem cost and path requirement edits are in one section and the actual equipment modding in another is in my opinion superior, because it allows other modmakers who might like the equipment changes but not the cost changes to copy the whole chunks to use as basis for their own mods (if they want just one or the otehr but not both). It would also be structurally consistent with the rest of the CB series. You can rest assured that when I do start going through it, things are going to get moved around pretty drastically. Basically you can expect stuff to be grouped by category (weapons, armor, miscellaneous) and level (trinket, lesser item, greater item, artefact) and possibly sorted by primary and secondary paths as well. Equipment modding would be in one section and the forging mods in another and both sections categorized as above.

I might actually do that before I do the Nations readme, just to get it out of the way.

If at all possible, I would like to retain editorial control of the format so that the rest of you can concentrate on content improvement. I can chime in on that as well, but not all that much.

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

I think my approach is definitely superior.
Which scenario is more likely: a would be modder considers the item mod and thinks: " I surely like the cost changes, but dislike all the weapon changes" , or him thinking " I mostly like the changes of this mod, but there are items x,y and z which I could mod better".

My approach is superior for the much more likely scenario 2.

Basically it boils down to this: my approach is better for the modder/ overall readability, your approach might be better for a modder who wants to throw out huge parts of the mod. As for structural consistency, it already is really annoying in the spell mod to check out the changes zen made to the units, which is one of the reason why I made a special blackunitview map for it.

I´ll happily let you retain the editorial control(not that I have anything to say in that matter as it´s primarily quantum´s /zen´s mod), but splitting the changes in several parts destroys the readability. Sorting the items by class is a really good idea though.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

On reflection, I suppose that you're right in this instance. I'll make that change.

I'm going to put out a new version of the Item mod out later today, with the changes I outlined above. It's also going to be a Null Mod in the sense that I've added the #selectitem "<item name>" and #end lines for every single bleeding item that it is possible to build, categorized by type etc and all in the same construction levels and in the same order as they appear in the unmodded game.

Those should stay static, and changes in construction level should not cause them to move around, because otehrwise it is going to be a pain in the arse to try and find anything, especially if things change from version to version. The original author of the mod ought to be shot, it was impossible to find anything without scrolling through the whole file or using a search function.

There are also some item cost and level modifications that I personally violently disagree with, but we can talk about those later, I'm not going to meddle around with them now.

As for the spell mod, in that one the structure of speel edits in one section and unit edits in another is the only reasonable approach because the unit edits take up such a massive amount of space and the units are going to be edited very rarely compared to spell attributes. The readme should also help somewhat.

Another note on the spell mod: I didn't tinker with the contents, but Soul Gate Ermor had gotten quite the discount in its national spells, specifically the Wraith Consul and Senator. Never mind that they are immortal to begin with and also have unholy magic in spades, the consul now costs less to summon than a Wraith Centurion. That struck me as out of whack.

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

Nice stuff! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

(BTW: You could shorten the nation mod by three lines, for the seraph gets his magical skills (2A,1W) deleted and replaced by (2A,1W).)

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

the wraith senator was pretty useless, because unholy 3 isn´t much of an improvement over unholy 2 priests(where you get a ton for free), basically it´s only useful for summoning apparitions, which you get for free anyway.

His major drawback is that he doesn´t come with any equipment, he doesn´t even have a real weapon, so a wraith centurion is the better choice for a fighter. Even at 11 gems I´d probably still summon exclusively centurions. He might have a niche if you want to equip him as a thug though, because his stats are marginally better than the centurions.

As for the wraith consul, I too thought they were fine at 35 gems, because lvl 4 unholy is actually useful and the better stats are nice as well.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

Before you start re-organizing the item mod, here is a new version. Hopefully it fixes some of the things you violently disagree with. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I will be tinkering some more with the SG ermor part of the spell mod, I'm not totally happy with it myself.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

Too late, but I'll take a look and just port those things into the reformatted item mod. Didn't quite manage to do that today, as the readme rewrite is going to take more time than I expected. I've got to say, the item mod so far has had hands down the ****tiest organization in general of all the CB mods (and the pretender one was a real pain in the arse in its first incarnation).

I'm thinking of bumping the version number to 1.45 or something when I'm done. Will be a ***** to go through all of that again, but I'll do that. Hold off on any more development of the item mod until I've got a good version and a readme out (one to three days, depending)

Oh, and you can toss these things to me by email, to the previously given address [edirr(at)welho.com] if you want to talk about just some minor tweaks.

And most of my violent objections are still in place, but they only concern a few items. Let's have an indepth discussion of that in a few days.

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

Oh, and BTW, one of your edits seems to have broken the nation mod, it now errors out whenever you have it enabled and try to do something.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

Found it. Apparently the game still does not allow referencing armor by ID number, so I changed the lot of them back to referring by armor name and the problem vanished. The fixed Nations mod is attached.

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

All right, heads up!

The previous compilation of CB mods that I posted here had numerous problems:
The nations mod was broken due to errors on my part.
The item mod was full of typos, hence did not work as intended.
Spell mod had some issues with certain national spells.

This has all been fixed now. The itemmod has been gone over with a fine tooth comb, reorganized and all typos fixed. The nations mod has been improved upon, and there is a slightly newer version that also fixes some other (mainly Caelum) problems in v1.12.

So, I present, the Auigust 12, 2005 compilation of CB mods, including:
Scales 1.3 + readme
Pretenders 2.51 + readme
Spells 2.1 + readme
Items 1.45 + brand new readme
Nations 1.3 (sorry, no readme yet)
Complete 1.4

Enjoy.

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

where at? ***sorry NOOOB- god...(me) I want to die

Re:
 

In the header to the post. Where it says Attachment http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Series - finally a new ver
 

Sorry about the messy thread, you can now find the latest mods here